Lamp shade and method of making same



Dec. 15, 1964 B. GOTTLIEB LAMP SHADE AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed Dec. 28, 1962 INVENTOR. 5Sfh'flf0 Germ/E5 BY .04 '04 imp/ 67 United States Patent 3 161,358 LAMP SHADE AND lVlE'lHfiD OF MAKING SAME Bernard Gottiieh, 134 Salem Road, Westbury, N3. Filed Dec. 28, 1952, Ser. No. 248,663 2 Claims. (Cl. 240-408) My invention relates to lamp shades and methods for making same, and more particularly relates to a novel application and assembly of the covering to the frame.

Expertly and artistically applying coverings to lamp shade frames is a highly developed art and science. The function of the frame is to hold the covering, which performs the actual shading function, in a certain fixed solid geometric configuration with respect to the lamp itself. It is common in the art to design and build lamp shades of the greatest variety of shapes and contours. Thus for example, circular cylindrical, elliptical cylindrical,.polygonal cylindrical, conical, bell-shaped, double bcll-shaped, and many other basic shapes will appear in a standard line of lamp shades. Moreover scalloped top and bottom edges and other variations are practiced on these and other basic shapes. Finally, many combinations of basic shapes are often practiced in a single shade design.

This variety of geometrical shapes is dictated of course by the using public, which prefers a proper shade for every room, every setting, and every taste. Although manufacturers have long been able to assemble such involved shapes from planar covering material, to do so has required many hand operations and consequently much expenses. Such hand operations occur principally in the many cutting and sewing steps necessary to develope the cover shape from planar material. Much effort has been expended by those skilled in the art in an attempt to develope total machine techniques for accomplishing this cutting and sewing in a manner entailing less expensive hand operations. However up to the present time such attempts at devising total machine techniques have failed of attainment of their ultimate goal, and the best that has been accomplished has been partial substitution of machine techniques with consequently only partial alleviation of the expense attendant to hand cutting and sewing operations. Moreover, what is worse, the compromises necessary in order to attain even this limited degree of hand labor reduction have undesirably served to limit freedom of lamp shade design. And as already pointed out, such design variety is necessary.

Thus the present state of the art may be viewed as a seeming impasse where on the one hand variety and freedom in lamp shade design are necessary and in clemand but are expensive to attain by the usual hand cutting and sewing techniques, and on the other hand machine. techniques do serve to lower somewhat the high labor costs of hand operations but since they demand some degree of standardization are limitations on variety and freedom of design. Because of this seeming mutual exclusion between economy and variety of design, the. old standard hand sewing and cutting operations have not: been supplanted, despite all manner of machine technique proposals.

There are numerous other difficulties with the standard hand cutting and sewing techniques for lamp shade covering. For one thing, both an inner lining and an outer covering must be applied. Since they are spaced in order to conceal the frame members thereinbetween, the assembly of both these coverings doubles the numbr of cutting and sewing operations required to develope the covering on a shade frame from planar material. For another, such cutting and sewing operations leave seams on the finished covering. While skillful, work can minimize the distraction from the intended effect, the art has nevertheless always recognized that seamless covering would be ideal. Finally, the custom nature of hand operations on a variety of shaped lamp shades has worked against the adoption of mass production techniques in lamp shade assembly, except where a given manufacturer has reduced his variety or adopted machine assembly techniques with the already discussed disadvantages.

What has been needed in. this art is a technique of applying a covering to a frame that does not vary significantly from one shape shade to a widely varying shaped shade, and that sharply reduces hand operations to the point of virtually eliminating cutting and sewing, and that produces an attractive shade without seams. Such a technique would clearly solve the impasse in. the art between economy and variety. Mass production techniques would for the first time be attainable together with design variety and absence of detailed hand cutting and sewing operations.

it is accordingly the principal object of my invention to provide a technique for applying a covering material to a lamp shade frame member with far less hand'cutting and sewing operations than has heretofore been possible.

Another principal object of my invention is to provide such a technique further characterized by universality of use with a wide variety of shaped lamp shades so as to adapt manufacture of a balanced line of shades to a minimum interchangeable set of assembly equipment and operating instructions.

Another object of my invention is to provide economical lamp shades of any desired shape.

Another object of my invention is to provide a lamp shade having a smoothly developed surface without seams on the major surfaces thereof.

Another object of my invention is to provide lamp shade design flexibility and freedom together with covering assembly economy.

Another object of my invention is to provide a technique having the aforesaid advantages and additionally adaptable to use by relatively unskilled labor regardless of the complexity or" a given lamp shade shape and the variety of such shapes to be manufactured.

These and further objects of my invention will appear more fully as the following detailed description of one presently preferred, but merely illustrative, embodiment of the inventive principles, proceeds.

in the drawing wherein like reference characters de note like parts in all views thereof:

FIGURE 1 is a plan view of one possible shaped lamp shade having a cover afiixed in situ according to the present invention,

FIGURE 2 is a perspective view of the lamp shade of FIGURE 1 having a portion of the covering member cut away to show the internal details of construtcion,

FIGURE 3 is a perspective view of the frame of'the.

' lamp shade shown in FIGURES 1 and 2- at an early stage of the assembly of the covering member to the frame member, and

FIGURE 4 is a perspective view of the lamp shade frame and cover of FIGURE 3 at a still later stage of assembly but prior to the final stage shown in FIGURE 1.

Referring now to the drawing, my invention comprises the discovery that certain stretch type fabrics, when used in seamless essentially tubular form, may quickly and easily be applied to a lamp shade frame in such a manner so as to form the inner and outer layer of covering with a minimum of hand operations and with nearly complete adaptability to various shaped frames. The resultant product is seamless and attractive, and is produced very economically. The process may employ a heat treat ing and/ or a dipping operation to achieve various degrees of adherence of the covering to the frame, and for other The bottom-scalloped bell-shaped lamp shade depicted in the drawing has been chosen to illustrate a shape having an unusual development in the sense of having a surface of widely varying and combined radii-of curva- I ture. It is precisely this type surface that was hardest to cover in the priorart in that a number of cutting and sewing operations were required in order to fully develope the surface. However, with the present invention, this surface is easily developed with practically no cutting and sewing operations. Where relatively regular surfaces are involved, such as various cylinders, it is even more advantageous to employ thepresent invention. Thus the illustrated shape was chosen to demonstrate the practice of the invention with a relatively difficult application.

As is shown in FIGURES 1 and 2,21 lamp shade according to the present invention comprises a frame member indicated generally at 1 and a closely covering cover member indicated generally at 2, said cover member preferably forming bothan outer layer 3 and an inner layer 4, and constituting a stretch type fabric, as hereinafterdefined. V v

More specifically, such a lamp shade comprises a frame 1 having a top metal ring 5 and a lower metal ring 6 with a plurality of metal ribs 7 holding rings 5 and 6 in spaced parallel to the fiber axis and thereby produces better luster, tenacit and other physical properties. A discussionof these properties is contained in Man Made Fibers, by R. W. Moncrief, 3rd edition, 1959, published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, at pages 299-305.

While any of. the stretch fabrics known to the art and having the general multidimensional multifold stretch capacity mentioned above may be-used with the present invention, it'is desirable when covering a lamp shade having an involved shape to employ a drawable thermoplasticiyarn fabric of the nature just described, for reasons that will appear hereinbelow.

relation to one another. A spider'indicated generally at 1 8 and comprising a plurality of arms 9 connecting a centrally located locking holder 10 to top ring 5. allows attachment of the frame to a lamp (not shown). It will be understood by those skilled in the art that such a frame, preferably but not necessarily fabricated in metal wire, is conventional. I

In the illustrative embodiment shown, upper ring 5 is circular and lower ring 6' is undulating and ribs 7 are approximately parabolic. The combined effect when assembled as in the figures, is to produce a bell-shaped frame having ascalloped bottom. By varying the. size and shape ofthe members 5, 6, and 7 a greatevariety of shaped frames can be produced, as is known to those skilled in the art. All such shapes are adaptable to use. with the principles of the present invention, as appear hereinbelow. a

The fabric usable with the present invention may be woven provided there is a high number of ends and picks, because when the fabricstretches itshould maintain its In'assembling the cover member indicated generally at 2 to the frame member indicated generally at 1, as is best shown in FIGURE 3, one end of an appropriately sized tube of stretch fabric of the nature described is attached to either of ring 5 or ring 6. It is preferable to attach it in all cases to upper ring 5, particularly when it is the smaller and less contoured ring, but attachments to the other ring are also possible; Attachment can be by hand or machine sewing, gluing, stapling, or by temporary means such as a clamp (not shown) or by other expedientsl In any event, the tubular fabric 2 is then deployed in appropriate fashion, such as in FIGURE 3 where attachment to rings and covering to form inner lining 4 first is being practiced. -The fabric 2 is then evenly stretched. around lower ring 6 and then upwardlyrtoward ring 5, but this. time on the opposite side of the frame portions, that is, outside of frame 1. At this point it is possible to fix theportion of fabric 2 that turns on lower ring 6 thereto, such as'by sewing or clamping or the like. However it is not yet necessary. FIGURE 4 illustrates the relationship of the fabric 2 to the frame 1 as it is integrity. Tightly fabricated fabric .of lace, net, or tulle configuration may also be employed. Such fabrics are;

produced on Leavers lace machines, bobbinet machines, Raschel machines, warp knitting machines and other well known machines.

they are fabricated, or arises in the interlooping relation of the yarns whenformed into a fabric such as tulle or net, or arises from both sources. In any event, fabric usable with the present invention is that known to the so 7 The stretch characteristic of such fabric arises in the springlike set put into the yarns when ring 5 in FIGURE 1.

. anoe or otherwise, and such FIGURE 1.

doubled back toward ring 5 but'on the outside of frame 1. After stretching fabric 2. until it reaches ring 5 again, it may be attached thereto by sewing or clamping or the like. When trimming strips 11 and 12 are attached to the rings 5 and 6 respectively, by sewing or otherwise, the lamp shade will have the finished appearance shown in FIGURE 1. With the practice of the present invention, it would not be necessary to attach a trim strip to more than one ring, that ring marking the beginning and end offabric 2, as for illustration the trim strip .11 on However it might be desired to secure a second trim strip to the other ring for appearis possible, as shown at 12 in Itwill be observed that a lamp shade according to the present invention has no seams on the major surfaces thereof, a characteristic never before attained in this art. Moreover the assembly operation isadaptable to use with H any shaped shade, since the stretch fabric compensates for differences in radius of curvature. Design flexibility is thus possible for the first time in combination with economy of hand operations and adaptability to mass production techniques. It is particularly advantageous to cover both inner surface 4 and outer surface 3 in one cutting-and-sewingless operation.

thermoplastic yarns, for a purpose to be explained hereinbelow. The thermoplastic yarns which are contemplated are those comprising filaments made from fiber-forming long chain synthetic polymers which upon spinning are molecularly unoriented fibers which must be drawn to several times their original length and which develope. their optimum physical properties somewhere within their range of drawability. Particularly adaptable are those of synthetic linearpolyamides, such as the polycaprolac: tams including nylon 6, nylon 66, and nylon 11, as Well as linear polyesters such as polyethylene terephthalate,

and as well as polyolefins such as polypropylene.

Nylon and the other, mentioned desirable'fibers are drawable and thermoplastic, having disoriented molecules in the undrawn state. Drawing orients the molecules A highly desirable variation on the covering operation just described, particularly where complicated shaped lamp shades are to be covered, is to employ heat setting or dipping techniques. In thisvariation, a fabric 2 is chosen having thermoplastic yarns of the nature described. Particularly advantageous are the interlooping yarn fabrics fabricated from such thermoplastic yarns, rather than the woven fabrics, as described above. In this event, the fabric 2 'should, have an even tighter configuration than usual, and should be chosen to have a tubular diameter appreciably smaller than the smallest diameter of the intended lamp shade, as for example diameter of ring 5. It should also have a length somewhat smaller than the combined inside outside distance from .one ring to the other. Both these sizing conditions apply, of course to the stretc h application alone as well as to the stretch application followed by heat setting and/ or dipping.

When practicing the heat setting and/ or dipping variation, the fabric 2 is stretched on by the same steps recited already. However, after the fabric is secured, but trim strips 11 and/ or 12 have not yet necessarily been applied, a heat setting operation may be employed. Heat setting of thermoplastic fibers in the stretched condition serves the function of annealing them, that is of relaxing the molecules. The effect is to make the stretched fabric cling more closely to those portions of the frame where the convolutions are greatest, and at the same time to prevent elastic memory.

The heat setting of the fabric is a factor of both time and temperature, but temperature is somewhat limited by the danger of damage to the fabric. Consequently approximately 410 degrees F. should preferably not be exceeded, and excellent results for all considerations are obtained by heat setting at approximately 325-350 degrees F. for one minute.

To aid in the finishing of the fabric after assembly, the entire lamp shade, preferably without the trim strips 11 and 12, may be dipped. It is useful to employ an acrylic type thermoplastic resin for such hot or cold dipping. An excellent alternative is to finish the fabric in a thermosetting textile resin such as melamine formaldehyde resin. In either event, the finishing resin aids the clinging of the fabric 2 to the frame 1, as also does the aforesaid heat setting step. Heat setting and hot dipping or treating with textile finishing resin may be employed as alternatives, or may be employed in conjunction.

It will be apparent that in those cases where a thermoplastic fabric is employed, hot molding techniques may be used to facilitate either full conformance of the outer layer 3, or to facilitate heat setting. While such molding pressure is not needed normally, it can aid the setting of the stretched (and therefore partially drawn) yarns by relieving the disoriented molecules, as aforesaid. This can also be accomplished by the heat setting alone or by the hot dipping alone, or by combinations thereof. Moreover, except in convoluted shapes such as that illustrated in the figures, the stretching steps alone are fully sufficient to attain the product having the recited novel and advantageous characteristics. And even in such convoluted shapes, the stretching alone is satisfactory, although here enhancement by the other setting and finishing techniques recited is most beneficial.

What has been described is one embodiment of a lamp shade and method of making same, with variations, according to the inventive principles. Those skilled in the art will realize that many variations thereon may be practiced without departing from the scope of the inven tion as defined in the appended claims, since the embodiment shown is illustrative, and not limiting. All such variations within the scope of the claims are part of the present invention and will produce the described results.

What I claim is:

1. A lamp shade comprising a frame member defining and enclosing a solid geometric space the outer surface of which consists at least in part of a curved region of complex curvature having at least two radii of curvature for each point thereon, a fabric member covering a major closed portion of the said outer surface of said frame member including at least a portion of said curved region of complex curvature and further covering the corresponding inner surface coordinate with said outer surface and separated therefrom by said frame member, said fabric member being of one continuous fabric web throughout said outer surface and therefrom to and throughout said inner surface, said web comprising a stretched fabric wherein the individual yarns vary from partially drawn to fully drawn depending directly upon the local degree of stretching tendency introduced by the radii of curvature of said surface, stretching tendency being prevented from transmitting along the yarns to neighboring regions of different radii of curvature and thus different stretching tendencies by a looped interrelationship of the yarns constituting said fabric.

2. A method for producing a lamp shade having an outer surface consisting at least in part of a curved region of complex curvature having at least two radii of curvature or each point therein, comprising providing a frame member having the desired surface development to be covered as well as opposed portions adapted to remain uncovered, providing a continuous open-ended fabric sleeve wherein the yarns thereof are partially drawn and are interlooped so as to be locked against other than local stretching, restricting one end of said sleeve to one frame portion defining one of said opposed portions, stretching said sleeve along said frame toward the other of said opposed portions, doubling said sleeve back toward said one opposed portion but on the other side of said frame portion, continuing to stretch said sleeve until said one opposed portion is reached, and securing the extremes of said stretched sleeve at said one opposed frame portion.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,356,948 8/44 Reed.

2,387,857 10/45 Ross 240-108 2,529,856 11/50 West et a1. 117139.4 X 3,065,531 11/62 Rosenthal 240-108 X NORTON ANSHER, Primary Examiner.

J. SCHNALL, Examiner. 

1. A LAMP SHADE COMPRISING A FRAME MEMBER DEFINING AND ENCLOSING A SOLID GEOMETRIC SPACE THE OUTER SURFACE OF WHICH CONSISTS AT LEAST IN PART OF A CURVED REGION OF COMPLEX CURVATURE HAVING AT LEAST TWO RADII OF CURVATURE FOR EACH POINT THEREON, A FABRIC MEMBER COVERING A MAJOR CLOSED PORTION OF THE SAID OUTER SURFACE OF SAID FRAME MEMBER INCLUDING AT LEAST A PORTION OF SAID CURVED REGION OF COMPLEX CURVATURE AND FURTHER COVERING THE CORRESPONDING INNER SURFACE COORDINATE WITH SAID OUTER SURFACE AND SEPARATED THEREFROM BY SAID FRAME MEMBER, SAID FABRIC MEMBER BEING OF ONE CONTINUOUS FABRIC WEB THROUGHOUT SAID OUTER SURFACE AND THEREFROM TO AND THROUGHOUT SAID INNER SURFACE, SAID WEB COMPRISING A STRETCHED FABRIC WHEREIN THE INDIVIDUAL YARNS VARY FROM PARTIALLY DRAWN TO FULLY DRAWN DEPENDING DIRECTLY UPON THE LOCAL DEGREE OF STRETCHING TENDENCY INTRODUCED BY THE RADII OF CURVATURE OF SAID SURFACE, STRETCHING TENDENCY BEING PREVENTED FROM TRANSMITTING ALONG THE YARNS TO NEIGHBORING REGIONS OF DIFFERENT RADII OF CURVATURE AND THUS DIFFERENT STRETCHING TENDENCIES BY A LOOPED INTERRELATIONSHIP OF THE YARNS CONSTITUTING SAID FABRIC. 